Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a data center powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this "chaos monkey" to test online services' robustness - their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society's chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder).

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone

How did the iPhone transform our world and turn Apple into the most valuable company ever? Veteran technology journalist Brian Merchant reveals the inside story you won't hear from Cupertino - based on his exclusive interviews with the engineers, inventors, and developers who guided every stage of the iPhone's creation. This deep dive takes you from inside One Infinite Loop to 19th century France to WWII America, from the driest place on earth to a Kenyan pit of toxic e-waste, and even deep inside Shenzhen's notorious "suicide factories".

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

For 25 years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession - until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital.

The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning about - and solving - an extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most daunting. Today it is machine learning programs that enable Amazon and Netflix to predict what users will like, Apple to power Siri's ability to understand voices, and Google to pilot cars.

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape - which launched the Information Age - and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.

The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

Whether you're an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur, or a not-for-profit leader, there's no shortage of advice on such topics as writing a business plan, recruiting, raising capital, and branding. In fact there are so many books, articles, and websites that many startups get bogged down to the point of paralysis, or they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they discover their mistakes.

Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal

Twitter seems like a perfect start-up success story. In barely six years, a small group of young, ambitious programmers in Silicon Valley built an $11.5 billion business out of the ashes of a failed podcasting company. Today Twitter boasts more than 200 million active users and has affected business, politics, media, and other fields in innumerable ways.

The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen

Ideas are arguably the most valuable asset in an information-based economy. But how do you find the best ideas - the kind that can boost careers, change organizations, and ramp up the value of projects? Why do some people seem to come up with these ideas whenever they need them? In this myth-busting audio book, the authors reveal that great business ideas do not spring from innate creativity, or necessarily from the minds of brilliant people.

Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built

In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.

To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

After Steve Jobs was unceremoniously dismissed from Apple, he turned his attention to a little-known graphics art company that he owned called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and Silicon Valley executive to whom he had never spoken before, in the hope of persuading Levy to help him get Pixar on the right track. What Levy found in Pixar was a company on the verge of failure. To Pixar and Beyond is the extraordinary story of what happened next.

Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal That Undid Him, and All the Justice That Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein rose from humble origins to the rarefied heights of New York City's financial elite. A college dropout with an instinct for numbers - and for people - Epstein amassed his wealth through a combination of access and skill. But even after he had it all, Epstein wanted more. And that unceasing desire - especially a taste for young girls - resulted in his stunning fall from grace.

Winner Takes All: Wynn, Kerkorian, Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas

Steve Wynn. Kirk Kerkorian. Dr. Gary Loveman. The first two are world-famous for their flamboyant, often outrageous efforts to dominate Las Vegas. But it's the third - an economist from Harvard Business School, unknown even to most of the guests at his high-profile casinos - who may now have the most impact.

Publisher's Summary

Gary Rivlin tells the story of Ron Conway, the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone else in Silicon Valley. Conway is a listener-friendly way into the realm of angel financing, where independently wealthy investors link up with companies just as they are being born. The Godfather of Silicon Valley takes you into this fascinating world on the edges of the financial universe, where the pace is frantic, the story lines are rich, and every moment is perilous.

This short book is not only a brief biography of Ron Conway but a brief analysis of what went wrong with the new internet economy.

Conway was a wealthy investor with a gift for networking. Conway had amassed a fortune in the computer business and by 1997 he retired and started a venture capital company. He provided financial backing to tiny start-ups that could not obtain financing from the main stream sources. By 2001 forty three of the companies where out of business and dozens more had to be written off.

The history of the Dot.com tells how the companies soared and then crashed. Some of the companies were started by visionaries, who were unable to run the day to day business of the companies but would not let go and hire the appropriate people, failed. Some companies got to the market first with an innovated product but failed to continue to advance the product and accordingly failed. I guess the old rules still apply to the new economy.

The book is well written and provides a quick look at the history of the Dot.Com so we can see how it has evolved. The author also reviews some basic business rules and how they were applied or not. I felt like this was a magazine article that was made into a book without providing more in-depth material.

Richard Ferrone does a good job narrating the book. Ferrone gave up the practice of law to become a stage actor. He has joined many other stage actors in narrating audiobooks. He won the 2011 Best Voice in Mystery and Suspense; he also won this award in 2010 and 2008. In 2009 he won the Best Voice in Science fiction and fantasy.